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Teaching with Historic Places

Heritage Education Services Program

Teaching with Historic Places (TwHP) uses properties listed in the National Park Service's National Register of Historic Places to enliven history, social studies, geography, civics, and other subjects. TwHP has created a variety of products and activities that help teachers bring historic
places into the classroom.

Back to School

To celebrate going back to school, Teaching with Historic Places highlights on the web the following lesson plans that consider important aspects of the history of education and educational facilities. Based on historical sites listed in the National Register of Historic Places, these lessons were created by National Park Service interpreters, preservation professionals, and educators. The lessons are free and ready for immediate classroom use by students in history and social studies classes.

• Brown v. Board: Five Communities That Changed America (121)
Learn about the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional. (Monroe Elementary School [now Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site] is a unit of the National Park Service/Robert Russa Moton High School, Sumner and Monroe Elementary Schools, Howard High School, and John Philip Sousa Middle School are National Historic Landmarks.)

• Carnegie Libraries: The Future Made Bright (50)
Discover how and why industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie chose libraries to be among his greatest benefactions to the U.S., and assess the impact of libraries on American society.

• From Canterbury
to Little Rock: The Struggle for Educational Equality for African
Americans
Understand the magnitude of the struggle involved in securing equal
educational opportunities for African Americans and examine how Prudence
Crandall challenged the prevailing attitude toward educating African
Americans in New England prior to the Civil War. (Little Rock Central High School is a National Park and National Historic Landmark/Prudence Crandall Museum is a National Historic Landmark.)